Traditionally, analytic philosophy has been affiliated with a formalist conception of inference which understands reasoning as a process that exploits syntactic properties of natural language according to a set of formal rules that are insensitive to conceptual content. This chapter discusses an alternative approach that takes semantic properties as the underlying forces driving rational inference. Building on Wilfird Sellars’ notion of material inference and analytic tools from cognitive linguistics, I will show how parts of the inferential structure of natural language (...) can be explained in terms of semantic relations between extra-logical concepts. In the end, I will outline a strategy for explicating some of these inference-types using Peter Gärdenfors’ theory of conceptual spaces. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:166 HUME'S INTEREST IN NEWTON AND SCIENCE Many writers have been forced to examine — in their treatments of Hume's knowledge of and acquaintance with scientific theories of his day — the related questions of Hume's knowledge of and acquaintance with Isaac Newton and of the nature and extent of Newtonian influences upon Hume's thinking. Most have concluded that — in some sense — Hume was acquainted with and (...) influenced by Newton's thought in particular and scientific thought in general. The genesis of this paper is the recent point of view put forward by Peter Jones which challenges the many permutations of this almost ritualistic standard line by removing Hume entirely from the Newtonian and the scientific scenes of thought. Jones argues that Hume knew less about Newton and science, and needed to know less about Newton and 2 science, than he believes is required by the above interpretation. Indeed, Jones argues that Hume's fundamental assumptions, which, according to Jones, derive ultimately from a form of Ciceronian humanism, drive a "wedge" between Newton's thought and that of 3 Hume. Even Hume's introductory remarks in the Treatise about his universal "science of man" are, for Jones, a declaration of independence from the materialistic trend (as Jones sees it) of Newtonian 4 science and not, as so many commentators have maintained — however tenuously or strongly evidence for linkage of Hume's project with Newtonian or scientific thought. Jones baldly argues that Hume totally lacked interest in science in general and in Newton and Newtonian science in particular. Following J. H. Burton's observation that Hume's work is surprisingly free from the "opinions" of contemporary scientists, 167 Jones states there is no evidence that Hume ever studied science at the University of Edinburgh or that he "pursued" scientific studies of any formal sort. Regarding Newtonian scientific thought, he emphasizes the paucity of specifically Newtonian scientific textbooks in the early eighteenth century 7 which might have been available for Hume to study and argues that nowhere in Hume's writings is there evidence of precise and detailed knowledge of Newton's science beyond what is available in Q Chamber's Cyclopaedia. Jones acknowledges that, in the Introduction to the Treatise, Hume utilizes a "general version" of Newton's "Regulae Philosophandi" from the beginning of Book III of Newton's Principia. Nevertheless, in Jones' view, Hume's fundamentally humanistic orientation separates him completely from g any Newtonian influence. Finally, according to Jones, Hume does not betray the least bit of knowledge of Newton's mathematics and its role in Newton's experimental methodology. On this evidence Jones grounds his central claim of Hume's "total lack of interest in contemporary science." What references there are to Newton and to science in Hume's works Jones finds "traceable to essentially literary predecessors such as Fontenelle or Montesquieu, or to standard works of theologians ] 2 or free-thinkers." The absence of clearly direct references to what Jones feels are scientific works results both from Hume's "total lack of interest in science" and from his commitment to a form of Ciceronian humanism which is "inimical" to what Jones finds to be the obvious materialistic tendencies of 13 science in the early modern period. Jones' account of the Ciceronian and French contexts of Hume's thought is excellent. But his claim that Hume had no interest whatsoever in science 168 is simply too strong and finally forces us to view science in Hume's day as equivalent to science in our own time, a manifestly anachronistic point of view. Throughout this paper, my argument will be conditioned by my view that Hume's interest in science cannot be separated from his epistemology or his religious scepticism. Hume's interest in science was precisely that of a man of letters of the eighteenth century vitally engaged in determining the proper use of scientific methodology in establishing the limits of the secular science of man once it has 14 been freed from the fetters of theology. Hume's interest in theological and epistemological issues inevitably gave rise to a strong interest on his part in the science of his day and in Newton's contributions... (shrink)

This paper presents a case study conducted on 17th and 18th century German corpora, confirming that both attraction and differentiation are important mechanisms of change, which interact with socio-symbolic properties of constructions. The paper looks at the frequencies and semantics of wo ‘where’ clauses at the beginning of the New High German period, which are compared to the frequencies and semantics of the connector da ‘there, since’ in the same period. The study reveals that the subordinating connectors wo and da (...) overlapped in their functions and were highly polysemous, establishing spatial, temporal, causal, conditional, and contrast links between clauses. This suggests that the connectors had become functionally similar by means of mutual attraction; however, they differed in that they belonged to different registers. Over the course of the 18th century, the polysemy of wo and da clauses reduced. Being gradually confined to one single meaning, the connectors became less similar. This differentiation occurs because the connectors aligned to distinct high-level schemas in the associative network. The study confirms that analogy is crucial to both attraction and differentiation of functionally overlapping constructions. While attraction involves analogy of specific instances of constructions, differentiation occurs in analogy to high-level abstract constructions in the associative network. (shrink)

In this book, the author shows that it is necessary to enrich the conceptual frame of the theory of rational choice beyond consequentialism. He argues that consequentialism as a general theory of rational action fails and that this does not force us into the dichotomy teleology vs deontology. The unity of practical reason can be saved without consequentialism. In the process, he presents insightful criticism of standard models of action and rational choice. This will help readers discover a new (...) perspective on the theory of rationality. The approach is radical: It transcends the reductive narrowness of instrumental rationality without denying its practical impact. Actions do exist that are outlined in accordance to utility maximizing or even self-interest maximizing. Yet, not all actions are to be understood in these terms. Actions oriented around social roles, for example, cannot count as irrational only because there is no known underlying maximizing heuristic. The concept of bounded rationality tries to embed instrumental rationality into a form of life to highlight limits of our cognitive capabilities and selective perceptions. However, the agent is still left within the realm of cost-benefit-reasoning. The idea of social preferences or meta-preferences cannot encompass the plurality of human actions. According to the author they ignore the plurality of reasons that drive agency. Hence, they coerce agency in fitting into a theory that undermines humanity. His theory of structural rationality acknowledges lifeworld patterns of interaction and meaning. (shrink)

Dans La puissance du rationnel, D. Janicaud retrace la dérive de la rationalité des modernes vers « la rationalité de la puissance » de la techno- science contemporaine. Convoquant d’autres penseurs, l’auteur développe une compréhension complémentaire du projet de la modernité, une caractérisation de la volonté de puissance de la techno-science comme pulsion de mort et une interprétation de la finitude du savoir humain en termes d’un désir de connaitre ancré dans l’expérience d’un manque. Il insiste aussi sur la nécessité (...) de ce que Janicaud appelle « un partage du rationnel ». (shrink)

This book offers a comparative study of the management of legal pluralism. The authors describe and analyse the way state and non-state legal systems acknowledge legal pluralism - defined as the coexistence of a state and non-state legal systems in the same space in respect of the same subject matter for the same population - and determine its consequences for their own purposes. The book sheds light on the management processes deployed by legal systems in Africa, Canada, Central Europe and (...) the South Pacific, the multitudinous factors circumscribing the action of systems and individuals with respect to legal pluralism, and the effects of management strategies and processes on systems as well as on individuals. The book offers fresh practical and analytical insight on applied legal pluralism, a fast-growing field of scholarship and professional practice. Drawing from a wealth of original empirical data collected in several countries by a multilingual and multidisciplinary team, it provides a thorough account of the intricate patterns of state and non-state practices with respect to legal pluralism. As the book's non-prescriptive approach helps to uncover and evaluate several biases or assumptions on the part of policy makers, scholars and development agencies regarding the nature and the consequences of legal pluralism, it will appeal to a wide range of scholars and practitioners in law, development studies, political science and social sciences. (shrink)

Kant's conception of moral agency is often charged with attributing no role to feelings. I suggest that respect is the effective force driving moral action. I then argue that four additional types of rational feelings are necessary conditions of moral agency: The affective inner life of moral agents deliberating how to act and reflecting on their deeds is rich and complex . To act morally we must turn our affective moral perception towards the ends of moral action: the welfare (...) of others ; and our own moral being . Feelings shape our particular moral acts . I tentatively suggest that the diversity of moral feelings might be as great as the range of our duties. (shrink)

This study explores the way that belief systems, interactions with social or experimental environments, and skills at the “control” level in decision‐making shape people's behavior as they solve problems. It is argued that problem‐solvers' beliefs (not necessarily consciously held) about what is useful in mathematics may determine the set of “cognitive resources” at their disposal as they do mathematics. Such beliefs may, for example, render inaccessible to them large bodies of information that are stored in long‐term memory and that are (...) easily retrieved in other circumstances. In other cases, individuals' reactions to an experimental setting (fear of failure, or the desire to “look mathematical” while being videotaped) may induce behavior that is almost pathological—and at the same time, so consistent that it can be modeled. In general, such “environmental” factors establish the context within which individuals access and utilize the information potentially at their disposal.Protocols illustrating these points are presented and discussed. A model based on an axiomatization of students' beliefs about plane geometry is outlined, and is shown to correspond closely to their problem‐solving performance. A framework is offered for analyzing problem‐solving performance at three qualitatively different levels: access to cognitive resources stored in LTM, executive or control decision‐making, and belief systems. (shrink)

This book is the first comprehensive study of Rousseau's rich and complex theory of the type of self-love (amour proper) that, for him, marks the central difference between humans and the beasts. Amour proper is the passion that drives human individuals to seek the esteem, approval, admiration, or love--the recognition--of their fellow beings. Neuhouser reconstructs Rousseau's understanding of what the drive for recognition is, why it is so problematic, and how its presence opens up far-reaching developmental possibilities for creatures (...) that possess it. One of Rousseau's central theses is that amour proper in its corrupted, manifestations--pride or vanity--is the principal source of an array of evils so widespread that they can easily appear to be necessary features of the human condition: enslavement, conflict, vice, misery, and self-estrangement. Yet Rousseau also argues that solving these problems depends not on suppressing or overcoming the drive for recognition but on cultivating it so that it contributes positively to the achievement of freedom, peace, virtue, happiness, and unalienated selfhood. Indeed, Rousseau goes so far as to claim that, despite its many dangers, the need for recognition is a condition of nearly everything that makes human life valuable and that elevates it above mere animal existence: rationality, morality, freedom--subjectivity itself--would be impossible for humans if it were not for amour proper and the relations to others it impels us to establish. (shrink)

This paper presents an in-depth literature review on the driving forces and barriers for achieving operational excellence through artificial intelligence. Artificial intelligence is a technological concept spanning operational management, philosophy, humanities, statistics, mathematics, computer sciences, and social sciences. AI refers to machines mimicking human behavior in terms of cognitive functions. The evolution of new technological procedures and advancements in producing intelligence for machines creates a positive impact on decisions, operations, strategies, and management incorporated in the production process of goods and (...) services. Businesses develop various methods and solutions to extract meaningful information, such as big data, automatic production capabilities, and systematization for business improvement. The progress in organizational competitiveness is apparent through improvements in firm’s decisions, resulting in increased operational efficiencies. Innovation with AI has enabled small businesses to reduce operating expenses and increase revenues. The focused literature review reveals the driving forces for achieving operational excellence through AI are improvement in computing abilities of machines, development of data-based AI, advancements in deep learning, cloud computing, data management, and integration of AI in operations. The barriers are mainly cultural constraints, fear of the unknown, lack of employee skills, and strategic planning for adopting AI. The current paper presents an analysis of articles focused on AI adoption in production and operations. We selected articles published between 2015 and 2020. Our study contributes to the literature reviews on operational excellence, artificial intelligence, driving forces for AI, and AI barriers in achieving operational excellence. (shrink)

This book concentrates upon how economic rationalities have been embedded into particular historical practices, cultures, and moral systems. Through multiple case-studies, situated in different historical contexts of the modern West, the book shows that the development of economic rationalities takes place in the meeting with other regimes of thought, values, and moral discourses. The book offers new and refreshing insights, ranging from the development of early economic thinking to economic aspects and concepts in the works of classical thinkers such as (...) Thomas Hobbes, John Locke and Karl Marx, to the role of economic reasoning in contemporary policies of art and health care. With economic rationalities as the read thread, the reader is offered a unique chance of historical self-awareness and recollection of how economic rationality became the powerful ideological and moral force that it is today. (shrink)

The YAP/TAZ family of transcriptional co‐activators drives cell proliferation in epithelial tissues and cancers. Yet, how YAP and TAZ are physiologically regulated remains unclear. Here we review recent reports that YAP and TAZ act primarily as sensors of epithelial cell polarity, being inhibited when cells differentiate an apical membrane domain, and being activated when cells contact the extracellular matrix via their basal membrane domain. Apical signalling occurs via the canonical Crumbs/CRB‐Hippo/MST‐Warts/LATS kinase cascade to phosphorylate and inhibit YAP/TAZ. Basal signalling occurs (...) via Integrins and Src family kinases to phosphorylate and activate YAP/TAZ. Thus, YAP/TAZ is localised to the nucleus in basal stem/progenitor cells and cytoplasm in differentiated squamous cells or columnar cells. In addition, other signals such as mechanical forces, tissue damage and possibly receptor tyrosine kinases (RTKs) can influence MST‐LATS or Src family kinase activity to modulate YAP/TAZ activity. (shrink)

Until recently, philosophers debating the rationality of time-biases have supposed that people exhibit a first-person hedonic bias toward the future, but that their non-hedonic and third-person preferences are time-neutral. Recent empirical work, however, suggests that our preferences are more nuanced. First, there is evidence that our third-person preferences exhibit time-neutrality only when the individual with respect to whom we have preferences—the preference target—is a random stranger about whom we know nothing; given access to some information about the preference target, (...) third-person preferences mirror first-person preferences. As a result, the simulation hypothesis has been proposed, according to which third-person preferences will mirror first-person preferences when we can simulate the mental states of the preference target. Second, there is evidence that we prefer negative hedonic events to be in our past (we are first-person negatively hedonically future-biased) only when we view future events as fixed and in no way under our control. By contrast, when we perceive it to be within our power to mitigate the badness of future events, we are first-person negatively hedonically past-biased. This is the mitigation hypothesis. We distinguish two versions of the mitigation hypothesis, the squirrelling version and the heuristic version. We ran a study which tested the simulation hypothesis, and which aimed to determine whether the squirrelling or the heuristic version of the mitigation hypothesis enjoys more empirical support. We found support for the heuristic version of the hypothesis, but no support for the squirrelling version. (shrink)

I argue that scientific and poetic modes of objectivity are perspectival duals: 'views' from and onto basic natural forces, respectively. I ground this analysis in a general account of objectivity, not in terms of either 'universal' or 'inter-subjective' validity, but as receptivity to basic features of reality. Contra traditionalists, bare truth, factual knowledge, and universally valid representation are not inherently valuable. But modern critics who focus primarily on the self-expressive aspect of science are also wrong to claim that our knowledge (...) is or should be ultimately mediated by ourselves. In objective science, we represent nature as a field of phenomena determined by and within explanatorily-basic physical structures that encode the causal impact of elemental physical forces. These causally-basic forces hence ground the possibility of objective scientific theory, even though (I argue) they are systematically excluded from its representational contents. I show how my notions of force and field emerge partly through my effort to naturalize concepts of 'God' and 'Laws' in 17th-century natural philosophy. In science, we use the structure of basic forces' impact to see corresponding objects. We do not see these forces themselves—and this relates to the 'transcendence' of 'God'. I supplement this historical analysis by critiquing standard accounts of objectivity, and by synthesizing elements from neo-Kantian epistemology and current 'structural' realism into a view that I call 'dynamic structuralism'. Finally, I argue that physics systematically relies on passive characterizations of phenomena like inertia and impressed force. Dynamic alternatives that are just as empirically adequate are possible, but they are non-scientific. Poetic objectivity involves a direct presentation of nature as an order of interacting forces. I elaborate first by developing a novel theory of the relation between beauty and sublimity, mediated by a basic category of 'sensory force' (e.g. a 'singing' tone in a beautiful melody). I then describe the interaction between sensory and affective dimensions of aesthetic experience, in relation to an original historical analysis of passion and 'disinterestedness' in Kant, Schiller and Nietzsche. I synthesize these lines of analysis into a critique of the role of 'expression' in art. I also resist 'spectator'-centric aesthetics, in this connection, by developing an account of artistic objectivity in dialogue with Ruskin's critique of the 'pathetic fallacy'. I contrast artistic objectivity with Romantic ideals of self-expression, while elaborating its positive relation to certain currents within Victorian and Modernist aesthetics, including Imagists' stress on 'exteriority'. My project creatively extends Nietzsche's view that philosophical and scientific theories are 'perspectival' expressions of theorists' drives. It is a virtue of Nietzsche's account that he takes the outlet of strong human drives in creative acts of theorizing to be just one among many higher modes of 'will to power' in nature—many of which are totally impersonal. But Nietzsche is still too focused on self-expression or willing one's own power. Objective science involves external forces' 'expression' in and through us, not just 'expressing' our own powers. And Nietzsche's vitalistic 'will to power' must be replaced by a basic ontology that better accommodates inorganic phenomena, like the 'lawful' order of celestial motions. Thus I aim to de-anthropomorphize and 'de-organicize' post-Kantian notions of willful striving and organic development, while preserving for force the primary ontological and evaluative status that theorists from Schiller and Goethe to Schelling and Schlegel to Emerson and Nietzsche attributed to will or to life. (shrink)

This article revisits what has often been called the of Voltaire's historical work. It looks at the methodological and philosophical reasons for Voltaire's deliberate focus on modern history as opposed to ancient history, his refusal to in judging the past, and his extreme selectiveness in determining the relevance of past events to world history. Voltaire's historical practice is put in the context of the quarrel of the ancients and the moderns, and considered in a tradition of universal history going back (...) to Bossuet and leading up to nineteenth-century German historicism. Paradoxically, Voltaire is a major figure in the history of historiography not in spite of his presentism (as Ernst Cassirer and Peter Gay have argued), but because of it. (shrink)

The meeting of film and history sits at a position where it becomes hard to distinguish their interdependent dynamics. Accordingly, how do film and history connect, work with or work against each other? What is the significance of film for constructing histories of the people whose past, identity and culture were denied for long years? Where does this bring or drive film towards becoming a medium through which precarious politics on diverse people are revealed, documented and archived? Leaning on (...) these, in this article, I will interrogate the position of transnational Kurdish cinema produced in Turkey for transforming the precarious political realms into a creative force that exposes different Kurdish histories, memories and temporalities. To do this I will make use of the interviews I conducted with Kurdish filmmakers in Turkey between 2010 and 2016, including Hüseyin Karabey, Mizgin Müjde Arslan, and Zeynel Doğan, and their films which reveal the tensions they inherit from their ancestors. (shrink)

Taking Pascal's appropriation of Montaigne as its main example, this article asks what it means to "say something new" in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. It argues that literary and philosophical innovation is best understood in reference to the rhetorical tradition, and it analyzes what "saying something new" means in terms of inventio, dispositio, elocutio, decorum, and ethos. Close attention is also paid to the relationship between economy and equity (in the rhetorical sense of these terms). For Pascal and Montaigne, (...) the "new" is desirable not for its own sake, but rather as an exercise for the soul. (shrink)

Animal personality refers to the consistency of variation in behavior among individuals which may be the driving force behind variations in complex behaviors as well. Individual personality could predict how well an organism would perform in behavior and cognition related tasks, as well as survive and thrive in its environment. Therefore, we would expect inter-individual variations in many behaviors, which would persist even if habituation to the experimental setup occurs, which generally results in convergence of behavior. Our study used (...) wild-caught zebrafish from three natural habitats with differing ecological regimes, to understand how consistency and repeatability in specific traits such as boldness, exploration, and spatial ability varies across and within populations even when habituation causes change in behavior. We found that the extent of individual variation differs between populations, with dynamic habitats showing similar repeatability. This indicates that habitat conditions are important drivers of individual variation in addition to other factors, such as sex or size of individuals within populations. Although we found that sex and size played an important role within some populations for some behaviors, in others, the variation was likely caused by other factors, for which we have not accounted. This study underlines the importance of studying inter-individual differences as the phenomenon that underpins multiple behavioral traits and explains the possible role of environmental and inherent factors that drive these differences. (shrink)

Self-Interest before Adam Smith inquires into the foundations of economic theory. It is generally assumed that the birth of modern economic science, marked by the publication of The Wealth of Nations in 1776, was the triumph of the 'selfish hypothesis'. Yet, as a neo-Epicurean idea, this hypothesis had been a matter of controversy for over a century and Smith opposed it from a neo-Stoic point of view. But how can the Epicurean principles of orthodox economic theory be reconciled with the (...) Stoic principles of Adam Smith's philosophy? Pierre Force shows how Smith's theory refutes the 'selfish hypothesis' and integrates it at the same time. He also explains how Smith appropriated Rousseau's 'republican' critique of modern commercial society, and makes the case that the autonomy of economic science is an unintended consequence of Smith's 'republican' principles. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Force and Translation; Or, The Polymorphous Body of LanguageElissa MarderOr un corps verbal ne se laisse pas traduire ou transporter dans une autre langue. Il est cela même que la traduction laisse tomber. Laisser tomber le corps, telle est même l’énergie essentielle de la traduction. Quand elle réinstitue un corps, elle est poésie.—Jacques Derrida, “Freud et la scène de l’écriture”The materiality of a word cannot be translated or (...) carried over into another language. Materiality is precisely that which translation relinquishes. To relinquish materiality: such is the driving force of translation. And when that materiality is reinstated, translation becomes poetry.—Jacques Derrida, “Freud and the Scene of Writing”Babel Revisited (The Mother Tongue and The Translation Machine)On January 20, 2012, Lawrence Summers, former president of Harvard and former Secretary of the U.S. Treasury, boldly announced a six-point vision for reforming the U.S. education system in a New York Times Education supplement editorial modestly entitled, “What you (Really) Need to Know.” For the [End Page 1] purposes of this discussion, I will limit myself here to a brief examination of what he says about the study of foreign languages and the merits of machine translation in the item listed as “number 5”:5. The world is much more open, and events abroad affect the lives of Americans more than ever before. This makes it essential that the educational experience breed cosmopolitanism—that students have international experiences, and classes in the social sciences draw on examples from around the world. It seems logical, too, that more in the way of language study be expected of students. I am not so sure.English’s emergence as the global language, along with the rapid progress in machine translation and the fragmentation of languages spoken around the world, make it less clear that the substantial investment necessary to speak a foreign tongue is universally worthwhile. While there is no gainsaying the insights that come from mastering a language, it will over time become less essential in doing business in Asia, treating patients in Africa or helping resolve conflicts in the Middle East.For those of us who still earn our living by teaching literary texts written in foreign languages in foreign language departments in the university, Summers’s breezy assessment that the university of the future need not (indeed ought not) include extensive foreign language study is, sadly, not exactly news. On the contrary, there is nothing particularly innovative or original about the position he advocates here: his vision of a future “global” American university—in which virtually all speculative activities are conducted solely in English—has already begun to be implemented in various colleges and universities around the world. If his remarks are nonetheless noteworthy, it is because of his apparent willingness—even eagerness—to defend a policy that university officials often officially still pretend to abhor. Indeed, Summers’s position goes far beyond the more familiar pragmatic voices that have concluded that the reduction of foreign language instruction is a necessary and unavoidable consequence of the unfortunate economic reality that the American university as we once knew it has become financially untenable and hence unable to accommodate areas of study that can be construed as nonessential. Instead, Summers goes a step farther: he actively advocates against investing precious university resources in foreign language study on ideological, political, quasi-philosophical, or dare I say it, perhaps even theological, grounds. By appealing to the value of what he calls here “cosmopolitanism,” he clearly implies that English’s status as “global language” discharges English speakers in the U.S. university system from any potential obligation to any other language on the globe. [End Page 2]According to Summers, English is optimally positioned to be a vehicle for genuine “cosmopolitanism” because, as a so-called “global language,” it constitutes a receptive, inclusive, and welcoming “common ground” for multicultural exchange that would be otherwise impossible given the sheer volume and overwhelming diversity of all the other languages in the world. In other words, in his opinion, recourse to English actually facilitates and enhances—rather than inhibits—genuine multicultural encounters as it offsets the potentially... (shrink)

Our human embryonic stem cell debates are not simply about good or bad ethical arguments. The fetus and the embryo have instead become symbols for a larger set of value conflicts occasioned by social and cultural changes. Beneath our stem cell debates lie conflicts between those who would privilege scientific progress and individual choice and others who favour the sanctity of family life and traditional family roles. Also at work, on both the national and international levels, is the use of (...) the embryo by newly emergent social groups to express resentment against cultural elites. The organisational needs of religious groups have also played a role, with the issue of protection of the embryo and fetus serving as a useful means of rallying organisational allegiance in the Roman Catholic and evangelical communities. Because the epiphenomenal moral positions on the status and use of the embryo are driven by the powerful social, cultural or economic forces beneath them, they will most likely change only with shifts in the underlying forces that sustain them. (shrink)

The French philosopher and intellectual historian Pierre Hadot (1922-2010) is known primarily for his conception of philosophy as spiritual exercise, which was an essential reference for the later Foucault. An aspect of his work that has received less attention is a set of methodological reflections on intellectual history and on the relationship between philosophy and history. Hadot was trained initially as a philosopher and was interested in existentialism as well as in the convergence between philosophy and poetry. Yet he chose (...) to become a historian of philosophy and produced extensive philological work on neo-Platonism and ancient philosophy in general. He found a philosophical rationale for this shift in his encounter with Wittgenstein's philosophy in the mid-1950s (Hadot was one of Wittgenstein's earliest French readers and interpreters). For Hadot, ancient philosophy must be understood as a series of language games, and each language game must be situated within the concrete conditions in which it happened. The reference to Wittgenstein therefore supports a strongly contextualist and historicist stance. It also supports its exact opposite: presentist appropriations of ancient texts are entirely legitimate, and they are the only way ancient philosophy can be existentially meaningful to us. Hadot addresses the contradiction by embracing it fully and claiming that his own practice aims at a coincidence of opposites (a concept borrowed from the Heraclitean tradition). For Hadot the fullest and truest way of doing philosophy is to be a philosopher and a historian at the same time. (shrink)

Emphasizing a keen interest in the corporeal/bodily in its dynamics and its cognitive characteristics, the authors show that the appeal to the corporeal as a cognitive option changes the understanding and perception of such traditional phenomena as the world, reality, space, things. The proposition that the subject constructs the world, and our bodily experience is determined by the word and constructed by discursive contexts, looks incomplete: its limited nature requires some additions. The authors underline that the study of human sensual (...) cognitive capabilities and the analysis of the cognitive map of the bodily forces us to pay attention to embodied rationality. Addressing it allows us to overcome constructivism, focused exclusively on the discourse of the word, because our intelligence was also shaped in accordance with the form of body action. The authors turned to the problem of mode the visibility of ethics and posed a provocative question as follows: can the cognitive abilities of the bodily act as a basis for ‘construction the morality’ and occupy n equal position with verbal discourse? To solve this problem, the authors analyzed relevant scientific findings and their influence on the nature of the development of constructivist epistemology, studied the debate on the issue of ethics taking place among the representatives of constructivism, and, in particular, analyzed discussions on tools of the constructivism. At present, all ideas and works of constructivism must take into account bodily rationality as their obligatory component (in its general instrumental and methodological basis), and bodily rationality can serve as the basis for “constructing morality.”. (shrink)

Dick Popkin and James Force have attended a number of recent conferences where it was apparent that much new and important research was being done in the fields of interpreting Newton's and Spinoza's contributions as biblical scholars and of the relationship between their biblical scholarship and other aspects of their particular philosophies. This collection represents the best current research in this area. It stands alone as the only work to bring together the best current work on these topics. Its (...) primary audience is specialised scholars of the thought of Newton and Spinoza as well as historians of the philosophical ideas of the late seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries. (shrink)

Value and reasons for action are often cited by rationalists and moral realists as providing a desire-independent foundation for normativity. Those maintaining instead that normativity is dependent upon motivation often deny that anything called "value" or "reasons" exists. According to the interest-relational theory, something has value relative to some perspective of desire just in case it satisfies those desires, and a consideration is a reason for some action just in case it indicates that something of value will be accomplished by (...) that action. Value judgements therefore describe real properties of objects and actions, but have no normative significance independent of desires. ;It is argued that only the interest-relational theory accounts for the practical significance of value and reasons. Against the Kantian hypothesis of prescriptive rational norms, I attack the alleged instrumental norm or hypothetical imperative, showing that the normative force for taking the means to our ends is explicable in terms of our desire for the end, and not as a command of reason. This analysis also provides a solution to the puzzle concerning the connection between value judgement and motivation. While it is possible to hold value judgements without motivation, the connection is more than accidental. This is because value judgements are usually but not always made from the perspective of desires that actually motivate the speaker. In the normal case judgement entails motivation. But often we conversationally borrow external perspectives of desire, and subsequent judgements do not entail motivation. ;This analysis drives a critique of a common practice as a misuse of normative language. The "absolutist" attempts to use and, as philosopher, analyze normative language in such a way as to justify the imposition of certain interests over others. But these uses and analyses are incoherent---in denying relativity to particular desires they conflict with the actual meaning of these utterances, which is always indexed to some particular set of desires. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Montaigne and the Coherence of EclecticismPierre ForceSince the publication of Pierre Hadot's essays on ancient philosophy by Arnold Davidson in 1995,2 Michel Foucault's late work on "the care of the self"3 has appeared in a new light. We now know that Hadot's work was familiar to Foucault as early as the 1950s.4 It is also clear that Foucault's notion of "techniques of the self" is very close to what (...) Hadot calls "spiritual exercises." At the same time, there are important differences between the views of these two philosophers, and Hadot has often expressed his regret that Foucault's untimely death prevented them from exploring these differences.5 One important point of disagreement was the status of eclecticism. In Foucault's interpretation of ancient philosophy, the "constitution of the self" implied a personal choice among disparate philosophical references: "Writing as a personal exercise done by the self and for the self, is an art of disparate truth."6 In a 1989 article Hadot argued from a historical point of view that, so far as Stoicism and Epicureanism were concerned, [End Page 523] eclecticism had no place in a mature practice of philosophy. Foucault's favorite example, Seneca's Letters to Lucilius, in which Stoic arguments were invoked along with Epicurean arguments, was a work for beginners. In a mature practice of Stoicism, one would stick to the arguments of the Stoic school, choose them for their coherence, and instead of trying to forge a spiritual identity for oneself through writing, one would "liberate oneself from one's individuality in order to raise oneself up to universality."7 Hadot added that "it is only in the New Academy—in the person of Cicero, for instance—that a personal choice is made according to what reason considers as most likely at a given moment."8 This discussion of Foucault may give the impression that Hadot was somewhat dismissive of eclecticism. Yet in a 2001 interview Hadot claimed that he had always admired Cicero's intellectual independence, and he proposed a reappraisal "of an attitude that has always had a bad reputation: eclecticism."9Something very similar is a stake in the work of Alexander Nehamas, as Lanier Anderson and Joshua Landy showed in their study of his Art of Living. In the conception of philosophy as a "way of life" (Hadot) or "care of the self" (Foucault) or "self-fashioning" (Nehamas), a central issue is the relationship between theoretical coherence and the coherence of the person who theorizes. Elaborating on Nehamas's chapter on Montaigne, Anderson and Landy argue that there is a move in Montaigne away from doctrinal coherence and towards a coherence of the self. As they put it, "the harmonious whole Montaigne commends [... ] is not a coherent body of fact or theory; it is the unified self of the theorizer."10 Anderson and Landy show that this brings up all kinds of difficulties: can this unified self be other than a fiction? If that is the case, how can philosophy be a way of life? Nehamas's answer is very much in the spirit of the late Foucault: there is a coherence of the self in Montaigne, and this coherence is the product of writing as a philosophical activity. The self is fashioned through writing.Because Montaigne writes in the ancient tradition of philosophy as a way of life, one may recall Hadot's suggestion that Foucault's notion of [End Page 524] "writing the self" is an intriguing but historically inaccurate description of ancient philosophical practice. But perhaps Hadot agrees with Foucault after all, since in his most recent interviews, he speaks favorably of eclecticism, a notion that is central to Foucault's analysis of self-fashioning through writing. The case of Montaigne is particularly interesting for these purposes, not only because the Essays seem to be the prototypical example of "writing the self," but also because eclecticism is both discussed and practiced throughout the Essays. I propose to take a fresh look at this issue by investigating the status of eclecticism in Montaigne's Essays. This must start with an examination of the philosophical tradition most closely associated with... (shrink)

The CRISPR system for gene editing can break, repair, and replace targeted sections of DNA. Although CRISPR gene editing has important therapeutic potential, it raises several ethical concerns. Some bioethicists worry CRISPR is a prelude to a dystopian future, while others maintain it should not be feared because it is analogous to past biotechnologies. In the scientific literature, CRISPR is often discussed as a revolutionary technology. In this paper we unpack the framing of CRISPR as a revolutionary technology and contrast (...) it with framing it as a value-threatening biotechnology or business-as-usual. By drawing on a comparison between CRISPR and the Ford Model T, we argue CRISPR is revolutionary as a product, process, and as a force for social change. This characterization of CRISPR offers important conceptual clarity to the existing debates surrounding CRISPR. In particular, conceptualizing CRISPR as a revolutionary technology structures regulatory goals with respect to this new technology. Revolutionary technologies have characteristic patterns of implementation, entrenchment, and social impact. As such, early identification of technologies as revolutionary may help construct more nuanced and effective ethical frameworks for public policy. (shrink)

Artificial intelligence and robotics is pervasive in daily life and set to expand to new levels potentially replacing human decision-making and action. Self-driving cars, home and healthcare robots, and autonomous weapons are some examples. A distinction appears to be emerging between potentially benevolent civilian uses of the technology (eg unmanned aerial vehicles delivering medicines), and potentially malevolent military uses (eg lethal autonomous weapons killing human com- batants). Machine-mediated human interaction challenges the philosophical basis of human existence and ethical conduct. Aside (...) from technical challenges of ensuring ethical conduct in artificial intelligence and robotics, there are moral questions about the desirability of replacing human functions and the human mind with such technology. How will artificial intelligence and robotics engage in moral reasoning in order to act ethically? Is there a need for a new set of moral rules? What happens to human interaction when it is mediated by technology? Should such technology be used to end human life? Who bears responsibility for wrongdoing or harmful conduct by artificial intelligence and robotics? -/- Whilst Kant may be familiar to international lawyers for setting restraints on the use of force and rules for perpetual peace, his foundational work on ethics provides an inclusive moral philosophy for assessing ethical conduct of individuals and states and, thus, is relevant to discussions on the use and development of artificial intelligence and robotics. His philosophy is inclusive because it incorporates justifications for morals and legitimate responses to immoral conduct, and applies to all human agents irrespective of whether they are wrongdoers, unlawful combatants, or unjust enemies. Humans are at the centre of rational thinking, action, and norm-creation so that the rationale for restraints on methods and means of warfare, for example, is based on preserving human dignity as well as ensuring conditions for perpetual peace among states. Unlike utilitarian arguments which favour use of autonomous weapons on the basis of cost-benefit reasoning or the potential to save lives, Kantian ethics establish non-consequentialist and deontological rules which are good in themselves to follow and not dependent on expediency or achieving a greater public good. -/- Kantian ethics make two distinct contributions to the debate. First, they provide a human-centric ethical framework whereby human exist- ence and capacity are at the centre of a norm-creating moral philosophy guiding our understanding of moral conduct. Second, the ultimate aim of Kantian ethics is practical philosophy that is relevant and applicable to achieving moral conduct. -/- I will seek to address the moral questions outlined above by exploring how core elements of Kantian ethics relate to use of artificial intelli- gence and robotics in the civilian and military spheres. Section 2 sets out and examines core elements of Kantian ethics: the categorical imperative; autonomy of the will; rational beings and rational thinking capacity; and human dignity and humanity as an end in itself. Sections 3-7 consider how these core elements apply to artificial intelligence and robotics with discussion of fully autonomous and human-machine rule-generating approaches; types of moral reasoning; the difference be- tween ‘human will’ and ‘machine will’; and respecting human dignity. (shrink)

The concept of rationality in general suggested in given paper may be considered as the initial theoretical abstraction that could become the starting point of rationality analysis. The “abstract concept” that is free from any sort of rationality individual being, indifferent and formal towards any particular stage of its becomingness, permits to specify the key attributes and principles which determine its fundamental sense. The rationality attributes realization is going through the external characteristics acquisition that is the (...) process of rationality actual being becoming. In this case external characteristics are axiological, praxiological,cultural‐historical, and existential attributes that “inbreathe” rationality the “vital force” which allows it to abandon the realm of total abstraction. (shrink)

A CLOSE READING OF HUME’S ESSAY, "OF MIRACLES", REVEALS THAT HUME SPECIFICALLY AIMS HIS SCEPTICAL ARGUMENT AT THE PROOF OF CHRISTIAN REVELATION VIA FULFILLED PROPHETIC PREDICTIONS AS WELL AS AT MIRACLES. JOHNSON IS UNAWARE OF THIS FACT AND SO I CONCLUDE THAT HE HIMSELF HAD NOT READ THE ESSAY CLOSELY, THAT HE PROBABLY ONLY KNEW THE GENERAL OUTLINES OF THE ARGUMENT AT SECOND HAND THROUGH BOSWELL.

THE PURPOSE OF THE ARTICLE IS TO SUPPORT KEMP SMITH’S INTERPRETATION THAT PHILO, IN THE "DIALOGUES", SPEAKS FOR HUME "FROM START TO FINISH." THIS INTERPRETATION HAS RECENTLY BEEN QUESTIONED BY PROFESSOR JAMES NOXON WHO BELIEVES THAT PHILO IS A TRUE PYRRHONIAN SCEPTIC AND THEREFORE DOES NOT REPRESENT THE MITIGATED SCEPTICISM OF HUME. I SUPPORT KEMP SMITH’S INTERPRETATION BY SUGGESTING WHY PHILO SEEMS TO REVERSE HIMSELF AT THE END OF THE "DIALOGUES" AND TO ACCEPT THE DESIGN ARGUMENT AS SUPPORT FOR A (...) VAGUE SORT OF THEISM: HUME INTENDS PHILO’S ’REVERSAL’ TO APPEASE NOT THE RELIGIOUS ESTABLISHMENT WHICH HE DESPISES, BUT THE SCIENTIFIC ESTABLISHMENT WHICH HE RESPECTS. (shrink)

Suicide prevention is a National Health Service priority in the United Kingdom. People with mental illness are seen to represent one of the most vulnerable groups for suicide and recent British Government policy has focused on prevention and management of perceived risk. This approach to suicide prevention is constructed under a biomedical model of psychiatry, which maintains that suicidal persons suffer from some form of disease or irrational drive towards self-destruction. Many react to the idea of self-inflicted death with (...) instinctive revulsion, which has prevented serious discussion of the concept of rational suicide, particularly in relation to those with schizophrenia. The idea that there may be circumstances in which suicide can be viewed as rational is discussed within the biomedical approach to ethics and wider literature primarily in relation to physical disease, terminal states and chronic pain. It is not deemed a viable choice for those who are considered ‘non-autonomous’ due to the controlling forces of mental illness. I propose that suicide is not a consequence of mental illness per se, and that it may be seen as a rational response to a realistic perspective on the course and consequences of living with schizophrenia. The denial of dialogue about the validity of suicidal ideation for people with schizophrenia has led to negative consequences for people with serious mental illness in terms of justice and recognition of person-hood. (shrink)

The technosocial formula is a key concept in social cognition. It means that society needs a larger amount of life resources than people can produce. The main social goal means relationship along with technology is a provision of material production. Man is redundant to the extent to which his appearance goes beyond the natural balance. Production growth increases the amount of excess consumption and population, and at the same time the scarcity of natural resources. The volume of world energy consumption (...) is increasing, while hydrocarbon energy sources are exhaustible. It is necessary to change the technology of energy-oriented use of oil. The main consequence of the reorientation to the use of biological resources will be the restructuring of the social world. (shrink)

Ethics consultation has become an integral part of the fabric of U.S. health care delivery. This article summarizes the second edition of the Core Competencies for Health Care Ethics Consultation report of the American Society for Bioethics and Humanities. The core knowledge and skills competencies identified in the first edition of Core Competencies have been adopted by various ethics consultation services and education programs, providing evidence of their endorsement as health care ethics consultation (HCEC) standards. This revised report was prompted (...) by thinking in the field that has evolved since the original report. Patients, family members, and health care providers who encounter ethical questions or concerns that ethics consultants could help address deserve access to efficient, effective, and accountable HCEC services. All individuals providing such services should be held to the standards of competence and quality described in the revised report. (shrink)

Professor Margaret Jo Osler of the University of Calgary, an historian of early modern science and philosophy (and a member of the Board of Directors of the Journal of the History of Philosophy since 2002) died on September 15, 2010. Born on November 27, 1942, she proudly proclaimed herself to be a "red diaper baby" and particularly delighted in telling her right-wing friends how her middle name was her parents' homage to Stalin. An energetic scholar with a vibrant and positive (...) personality, Maggie, as everyone who worked with her came to call her, never considered retirement and was actively working right up to her diagnosis with pancreatic cancer in early July, 2010.After graduating from Swarthmore College in .. (shrink)

ABSTRACTThis paper investigates the relationship between Helmholtz's formulation of the principle of the conservation of force and the two principles well known in rational mechanics as the principle of vis viva and the principle of the conservation of vis viva. An examination of the relevant literature from Leibniz to Duhamel reveals both Helmholtz's indebtedness to that tradition and his creative refashioning of it as he endeavoured to craft an argument that would both prohibit the construction of a perpetuum mobile (...) and the efficacy of a supposed vital force and demonstrate the necessity of an ontology of mass points subject to attractive and repulsive central forces depending solely on distance. (shrink)

Hardenberg/Novalis uses the concept of drive in his Fichte Studies as well as later in an almost exuberant manner. He is inspired by conceptions from Reinhold, Fichte, Platner, and Schiller. According to him, drives stand for the forces and forms of expression of human nature. They represent the mental energies of humans, such as seeing, thinking, or feeling, which arise from the uncontrollable realm of the unconscious. Thus, according to a statement in the Monologue, “this urge to speak [Sprachtrieb, (...) drive of language] were the mark of the inspiration of language, the working of language within me”. Moreover, his statement from the Fichte Studies, “The drive to be an I is at the same time the drive to think and to feel”, emphasises the importance of not only understanding human thought in a classical way but also exploring its close relationship to the realm of feelings. In this manner, Hardenberg impressively reflects on the reciprocity of thinking and feeling as the fundamental form of philosophising. (shrink)

This book considers the emergence of dialectic out of the spirit of dialogue and traces the relation between the two. It moves from Plato, for whom dialectic is necessary to destroy incorrect theses and attain thinkable being, to Cusanus, to modern philosophers—Descartes, Kant, Hegel, Schleiermacher and Gadamer, for whom dialectic becomes the driving force behind the constitution of a rational philosophical system. Conceived as a logical enterprise, dialectic strives to liberate itself from dialogue, which it views as merely accidental (...) and even disruptive of thought, in order to become a systematic or scientific method. The Cartesian autonomous and universal yet utterly monological and lonely subject requires dialectic alone to reason correctly, yet dialogue, despite its unfinalizable and interruptive nature, is what constitutes the human condition. (shrink)

The article explicates the significance of M. Weber’s works for understanding of calling as an important world view idea of the European culture. The author observes Weber’s analysis of forming of the notion of calling in the times of ancient Egypt state and Judaic captivity as well as in the Old Testament and its interpretations by M. Luther. Particularly significant for the understanding of social processes during the Reformation in Europe and then in America became Weber’s analysis of the transformation (...) of the religious meaning of calling as “task” and “mission” of a man in the world into the motivation for a practical professional activity. The study shows the ways of implementation of Weber’s theory of social action and political leadership within the concept of calling. The internal collision of the experience of calling is explicated by the examples of charismatic leadership, responsibility of a politician and ethos of a scientist. Combination of affective motivation, value and target oriented rationality in the calling forms the problem for a decision, although this complexity is a driving force of the realization of calling by a person. The philosophical and theological substratum of the Weber’s concept of calling is his looking for the integration of temporal and eternal dimensions in human existence. Calling as an idea of postreformational European culture serves for finding and realization of the meaning of personal life as well as for legitimation of social action. Especially this idea grounds the possibility and necessity of conciliation of the ethics of conviction and the ethics of responsibility in individual as well as in social existence and morality. (shrink)

A renewed interest into the philosophy of Bergson in the last decades brings his central notion duration to the fore of lively discussions. This renewed interest certainly has its source in Deleuze’s Bergsonism, where he declared Bergson’s philosophy as an alternative to phenomenology that dominated the philosophical discussions throughout the 20th century. Deleuze’s attempt to put Bergson as an alternative to phenomenology was a protest against the phenomenological tradition, which denounced Bergson’s analysis of duration as it is first developed in (...) Time and Free Will as remaining within the confines of psychological realism and reducing time to a flowing, fluid thing that resides in consciousness. In an attempt to contribute to the Deleuzian interpretation that defends Bergson’s notion of duration against its phenomenological criticisms, I argue in the present study that the notion of duration as developed by Bergson in Time and Free Will can be best interpreted in terms of a Leibnizian notion of force. Following Bergson’s criticism of reduction of time to a homogeneous medium in the work of Kant, I introduce Bergson’s analysis of duration as a drive that prolongs the past of consciousness into its present. In doing this I take a detour through Heidegger’s interpretation of Leibniz’s vis activa as drive. (shrink)

A review of Yvanka Raynova's monograph Sein, Sinn und Werte: Phänomenologische und hermeneutische Perspektiven des europäischen Denkens. Frankfurt am Main, Bern, Bruxelles, New York, Oxford, Warszawa, Wien: 2017, 331 S.

This research focuses on the driving forces of technology development and the interactive relationships between technology and the factors that promote economic development and social progress. It aims at presenting a basic theory for sustainable development, as well as a foundation for decision-makers for drawing up an integrative strategy. As such it is an attempt at how to create harmonious relations between human progress, technology, economy, and society.

Whatever may be said about contemporary feminists’ evaluation of Descartes’ role in the history of feminism, Mary Astell herself believed that Descartes’ philosophy held tremendous promise for women. His urging all people to eschew the tyranny of custom and authority in order to uncover the knowledge that could be found in each one of our unsexed souls potentially offered women a great deal of intellectual and personal freedom and power. Certainly Astell often read Descartes in this way, and Astell herself (...) has been interpreted as a feminist – indeed, as the first English feminist. But a close look at Astell’s and Descartes’ theories of reason, and the role of authority in knowledge formation as well as in their philosophies of education, show that there are subtle yet crucial divergences in their thought – divergences which force us to temper our evaluation of Astell as a feminist. -/- My first task is to evaluate Astell’s views on custom and authority in knowledge formation and education by comparing her ideas with those of Descartes. While it is true that Astell seems to share Descartes’ wariness of custom and authority, a careful reading of her work shows that the wariness extends only as far as the tyranny of custom over individual intellectual development. It does not extend to a wariness about social and institutional customs and authority (including, perhaps most crucially, the institution of marriage as we see in her Reflection on Marriage). The reason for this is that Astell’s driving goal is to help women to come to know God’s plan for women – both in their roles as human and in their roles as women. According to Astell, while it is true that, as individuals, women must develop their rational capacities to the fullest in order to honor God and his plan for women as human, as members of social institutions, including the institution of marriage, women must subordinate themselves to men, including their husbands, in this case so as to honor God and his plan for women as women. Once we understand the theological underpinnings of her equivocal reaction to authority and custom, we can see that Astell may be considered a feminist in a very tempered way. -/- My second task is to use these initial conclusions to re-read her proposal for single-sexed education that we find in A Serious Proposal to the Ladies. It is true that Astell encourages women to join single-sexed educational institutions for the unique and empowering friendships that women can develop in such institutions. Still, my argument continues, the development of such friendships is not entirely an end in itself. Rather, Astell encourages women to develop such friendships such that they can re-enter the broader world armed with the tools that will help them endure burdensome features of the lives that await them in the world, including their lives as subordinated wives –burdens that Astell does not, in principle, challenge. (shrink)

Creative force or creative shaping? This unprecedented effort to plumb the workings of the ontopoiesis of life by disentangling its primordial forces and shaping devices as they enter into the originary matrixes of life yields fascinating insights. Prepared by the investigation of the first two matrixes (the `womb of life' and `sharing-in-life', Analecta Husserliana Volume 74) the present collection of essays focuses upon the third and crowning creative matrix, Imaginatio Creatrix here proves itself to be the source and driving (...) force which brings us to the origins of the human mind - human life. Studies by: Elof Axel Carlson, A-T. Tymieniecka, N. Milkov, Eldon C. Wait, K. Rokstad, M. Golaszewska, M. Küle, W. Kim Rogers, Piotr Mróz, R. Pinilla Burgos, A. Carrillo Canán, G.R. Ronsivalle, J.E. Smith, A. Pawliszyn, A. Rizzacasa, L. Galzigna and M. Galzigna, Jiro Watanabe, M. Jakubczak, K. Tarnowski, M. Durst, W. Pawliszyn, R.A. Kurenkova, Carmen Cozma, E. Supinska-Polit, I.S. Fiut, Gerald Nyenhuis, Osvaldo Rossi, R.D. Sweeney, and D. Ulicka. (shrink)

Assassins are often regarded as ahistorical figures of evil. In this article, I contest this view by analysing the assassination of President William McKinley by Leon Czolgosz in 1901. There are two purposes to this article. The first is to situate McKinley’s assassination within the history and development of the social sciences, principally sociology, rather than assume that the assassin is a trans-historical representation of willful irresponsibility. The second is to describe and critique the discourse that made Czolgosz into a (...) rational agent once he entered history as an assassin. (shrink)

This leaves commemorate the death of Mr. Lai drunk for one week of the year, the first highlight of Mr. Yip Lai drunk morality to moral life as a call for the worlds and inviting, rather than imposing a thing, and thus analysis this point in its philosophical basis. Lai drunk leaves care and moral life, and care management of prospects, and that "preaching Management" and the "reasonableness" distinction, and in this perspective, the exploration provision of rational structure, driving (...) class='Hi'>force and hope, respectively, in The so-called form of science, experience in the form of scientific, interpretive discipline, analytical philosophy, contemplative philosophy諸level, there are in-depth research and published works, has always wanted to run through from the rational to believe, from the philosophical to the neural science of the road, play its intellectual generosity, to grand philosophical thinking索, to clarify the integrity of the Catholic University of psychiatric treatment, and from science, culture and faith development, pointing In order rational hope. This paper in memory of Prof. Jean Ladrière in the first anniversary of his passing away attempts to feature first his notion of moral life as "an invitation to perfection rather than imposing obligation on others," by referring to his philosophical analysis of moral life. Jean Ladrière concerned himself not only with moral life, but also with human reason and its hope. He made the distinction between reasonableness and rationality, based on which he explored the structure, dynamism and hope of human reason. He worked on the philosophical structure and dynamism of formal sciences, natural-formal sciences, hermeneutic disciplines, analytical philosophy and speculative philosophy as expressions of human reason. He penetrated the energetic development of spirit from science to faith, from philosophy to theology, showing thereby an admirable intellectual generosity and comprehensive power of philosophizing to exemplify the integral function of reason claimed by him as the "eschaton" of Catholic university and to explore the hope of reason through the development of science, culture and faith. (shrink)

Nietzsche sometimes praises the drive to order—to simplify, organize, and draw clear boundaries—as expressive of a vital "classical" style, or an Apollonian artistic drive to calmly contemplate forms displaying "epic definiteness and clarity." But he also sometimes harshly criticizes order, as in the pathological dialectics or "logical schematism" that he associates paradigmatically with Socrates. I challenge a tradition that interprets Socratism as an especially one-sided expression of, or restricted form of attention to, the Apollonian: they are more radically (...) disparate. Beyond strengthening the case for this basic point, I develop a distinctive account of what, exactly, distinguishes the Apollonian-classical and Socratic forms of order. To this end, I advance interrelated interpretations of Apollonian-classical simplicity and the "cold" calm that it elicits, by contrast to superficially similar Socratic phenomena. This illuminates Nietzsche's broader ambivalence toward science, in part by clarifying the nature and value of an idealized Apollonian science. (shrink)